THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 8, 2018
41
told me. "They feared that he was their
mortal enemy."The leadership drafted
potential strategies for retaliation, in-
cluding threatening American compa-
nies in China and withholding invest-
ment from the districts of influential
members of Congress.
Most of all, they studied Trump.
Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Min-
ister of Australia, who is in contact
with leaders in Beijing, told me, "Since
the Chinese were stunned that Trump
was elected, they were intrinsically
respectful of how he could've achieved
it. An entire battery of think tanks was
set to work, to analyze how this had
occurred and how Trump had negoti-
ated his way through to prevail."
Before he entered the White House,
China started assembling a playbook
for dealing with him. Shen Dingli,
a foreign-a airs specialist at Fudan
University, in Shanghai, explained that
Trump is "very similar to Deng Xiao-
ping," the pragmatic Party boss who
opened China to economic reform.
"Deng Xiaoping said, 'Whatever can
make China good is a good "ism." ' He
doesn't care if it's capitalism. For Trump,
it's all about jobs," Shen said.
The first test came less than a month
after the election, when Trump took a
call from Taiwan's President, Tsai Ing-
wen. "Xi Jinping was angry," Shen said.
"But Xi Jinping made a great e ort not
to create a war of words." Instead, a
few weeks later, Xi revealed a power-
ful new intercontinental ballistic mis-
sile. "It sends a message: I have this---
what do you want to do?" Shen said.
"Meantime, he sends Jack Ma"---the
founder of the e-commerce giant Ali-
baba---"to meet with Trump in New
York, o ering one million jobs through
Alibaba." Shen went on, "China knows
Trump can be unpredictable, so we
have weapons to make him predict-
able, to contain him. He would trade
Taiwan for jobs."
Inside the new White House, there
were two competing strategies on China.
One, promoted by Stephen Bannon,
then the chief strategist, wanted the
President to take a hard line, even at the
risk of a trade war. Bannon often de-
scribed China as a "civilizational chal-
lenge." The other view was associated
with Jared Kushner,Trump's son-in-law
and adviser, who had received guidance
from Henry Kissinger and met repeat-
edly with the Chinese Ambassador, Cui
Tiankai. Kushner argued for a close,
collegial bond between Xi and Trump,
and he prevailed.
He and Rex Tillerson, the Secre-
tary of State, arranged for Trump and
Xi to meet at Mar-a-Lago on April
th, for a cordial get-to-know-you
summit. To set the tone, Trump
presented two of Kushner
and Ivanka Trump's chil-
dren, Arabella and Joseph,
who sang "Jasmine Flower,"
a classic Chinese ballad,
and recited poetry. While
Xi was at the resort, the
Chinese government ap-
proved three trademark
applications from Ivanka's
company, clearing the
way for her to sell jewelry,
handbags, and spa services in China.
Kushner has faced scrutiny for po-
tential conflicts of interest arising from
his China diplomacy and his family's
businesses. During the transition, Kush-
ner dined with Chinese business exec-
utives while the Kushner Companies
was seeking their investment in a Man-
hattan property. (After that was re-
vealed in news reports, the firm ended
the talks.) In May, Kushner's sister, Ni-
cole Kushner Meyer, was found to have
mentioned his White House position
while she courted investors during a
trip to China. The Kushner Compa-
nies apologized.
During the Mar-a-Lago meetings,
Chinese o cials noticed that, on some
of China's most sensitive issues,Trump
did not know enough to push back.
"Trump is taking what Xi Jinping says
at face value---on Tibet,Taiwan, North
Korea," Daniel Russel, who was, until
March, the Assistant Secretary of State
for East Asian and Pacific A airs, told
me. "That was a big lesson for them."
Afterward,Trump conceded to the Wall
Street Journal how little he understood
about China's relationship to North
Korea: "After listening for ten minutes,
I realized it's not so easy."
Russel spoke to Chinese o cials
after the Mar-a-Lago visit. "The Chi-
nese felt like they had Trump's num-
ber," he said. "Yes, there is this random,
unpredictable Ouija-board quality to
him that worries them, and they have
to brace for some problems, but, fun-
damentally, what they said was 'He's a
paper tiger.' Because he hasn't delivered
on any of his threats. There's no wall
on Mexico. There's no repeal of health
care. He can't get the Congress to back
him up. He's under investigation."
After the summit, the Pangoal
Institution, a Beijing think tank, pub-
lished an analysis of the Trump Ad-
ministration, describing it
as a den of warring "cliques,"
the most influential of
which was the "Trump fam-
ily clan." The Trump clan
appears to "directly influ-
ence final decisions" on busi-
ness and diplomacy in a way
that "has rarely been seen
in the political history of
the United States," the an-
alyst wrote. He summed it
up using an obscure phrase from feu-
dal China: jiatianxia---"to treat the state
as your possession."
After Mar-a-Lago, Trump heaped
praise on Xi. "We had a great
chemistry, I think. I mean, at least I
had a great chemistry---maybe he didn't
like me, but I think he liked me," he
said on the Fox Business Network.
Meanwhile, Chinese analysts were
struggling to keep up with the news
about the rise and fall of White House
advisers. Following a report that Til-
lerson had disparaged the President's
intelligence, Shen, of Fudan Univer-
sity, asked me, "What is a moron?"
By early November, Trump was pre-
paring for his first trip to Beijing. Some
China specialists in the U.S. government
saw it as a chance to press on substan-
tive issues. "We have to start standing up
for our interests, because they have come
farther, and faster, than people thought,
pretty much without anyone waking up
to it," a U.S. o cial involved in planning
the visit told me. Among other things,
the U.S. wanted China to open up areas
of its economy, such as cloud computing,
to foreign competitors; crack down on
the theft of intellectual property; and stop
forcing American firms to transfer tech-
nology as a condition for entry to the
Chinese market. "It is time for a sense of
urgency," the o cial said.
Cui Tiankai, the Chinese Ambas-
sador to Washington, billed Trump's